


Need Your Grace

by Nina_Dances_In_Technicolor (orphan_account)



Series: Three's Company [2]
Category: Adam Lambert (Musician)
Genre: Community: cottoncandy_bingo, Dom/sub, M/M, Multi, Power Play, Teaching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-29
Updated: 2012-10-29
Packaged: 2017-11-17 07:07:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/548926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Nina_Dances_In_Technicolor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sequel to The Lover After Me. Adam needs a Dom. Sauli needs to learn. And maybe, Brad needs a little of both. Written for cottoncandy_bingo prompt "finding self."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Need Your Grace

**Author's Note:**

> I don't quite know   
> How to say   
> How I feel.  
> Those three words  
> Are said too much  
> They're not enough.
> 
> \--"[Chasing Cars](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaKr98ktoxU)," Snow Patrol

It's not the most awkward moment Brad's had in a context involving Sauli and sex.

No, the award for _most_ awkward will probably now and forever belong to the time Sauli misunderstood a word Brad used describing a boxing match and several hours later declared in complete frustration that he couldn't find fisting cuffs on the Internet _anywhere_ , but this moment, standing behind Adam's closed front door after a flurry of hugs and kisses and goodbyes, comes pretty close. In it Brad feels suddenly small and alone and scared, the weight of four weeks without Adam between them heavy on his shoulders and his heart, and he reaches out to take Sauli's hand, bumps into it and squeezes Sauli's fingers between his own before finding himself wrapped in a tight embrace.

"He will come back," Sauli whispers into Brad's ear. "He will do this arm and then he will come home safely to us."

"It's called a leg," Brad can't help correcting, and when Sauli giggles and bites his lip the tension is broken. Brad reaches a hand up and strokes his fingers through Sauli's hair, feels Sauli's shoulders flex under his other hand.

"I have it in the bathroom," Sauli murmurs, and Brad lets his hand rest at the base of Sauli's neck, squeezes there.

"Good," he praises. "Then go put it on for me, like a good boy, why don't you?"

Sauli gives him a vaguely petrified look. Brad strokes his hair again and nods toward the hallway, and finally Sauli sets off for the master bedroom and the last thing he'll do in there, barring complications, for four weeks. A month, thirty days.

Enough time, Brad hopes, to finish what they've begun so he can move on with his life.

Sauli comes back with one of Adam's voluminous house sweaters bundled high around his shoulders, and Brad makes a disapproving noise.

"Off," he says. Sauli shifts and bites his lip. Brad folds his arms. Sauli just stares back at him, eyes wide, like a doe caught by a poachlight. Brad reaches out with one hand, tilts Sauli's head by the chin.

"I won't touch you," he asserts. "Not yet. But that doesn't mean you don't have privileges I can't take away. _Off_."

Sauli swallows, hard, and then slides out of the sweater and lays it across the arm of a chair. Brad gives him a once-over and nods.

"Good."

Sauli gives a single jerky nod and reaches up to fidget with the collar. Brad lets it slide, at least for now; Sauli started the clothed portion of his day in a pair of Adam's sweats and a T-shirt, and he's ending it in a collar and a pair of black boxer-briefs. Brad guesses he's got a reason to be a little uncomfortable. He nods toward the sofa, and after he sits he finds the padded pillow Adam brought home for them last week and arranges it on the floor before patting it, once, in invitation. Sauli pauses, then sits, legs off to one side. Brad reaches for the pad of paper on the end table.

"Just so we're clear, you have the right to safe out anytime and if you need to, I expect you to," Brad says. "No more of this 'yeah, but Adam' bullshit. Adam isn't here. This is your time to learn, not to put yourself in an unhealthy situation. Got it?" 

Sauli nods once. Brad pokes him. Sauli squirms.

"I understand."

"And—this isn't important right now, except I want you to know it for later," Brad continues. "When we get a little further into physical stuff—if you start babbling at me in Finnish I don't understand, I'm going to end the scene. If I can't understand you, I can't be sure you're safe. And safety comes before anything else."

Sauli nods again. This time he speaks without prompting. "I understand that also." He pauses, but Brad is pretty sure he can see more coming, and stays silent. "Thank you."

"You don't have to thank me," he answers. "When this is done right, that's how it should be done. Your sub is always your first priority."

Sauli nods. Brad leans forward, elbows on his knees. "I know we talked about this already," he says. "But is there anything you want to add now that we're here?" 

There's a long pause, and Sauli raises his fingers to his collar. 

"I will wear this, if that is what you want," he says, and this time his voice is firm. "But I still will not take this off." He indicates his ring. 

"I know." Brad reaches out, puts his hand on top of Sauli's and folds his fingers down to keep the ring in place. "I wouldn't ask you to unless I thought it was getting in the way of you getting where you need to be. And we've already talked about that. I don't think it's a problem." He turns Sauli's head and looks him directly in the eyes. "I'll only ask you to take it off your hand once." He lets his fingers ghost over Sauli's, then touches his own face. "And if you want to wear it on a chain then, that's fine. You know why I'm asking, right?"

Sauli nods. Brad cocks his head and raises an eyebrow. Sauli bows his head, then raises it. "Because safety is the first priority?"

"Right." Brad reaches out and runs his fingers through Sauli's hair, a single long stroke from bangs to nape. "Anything else?"

Sauli hesitates. Then he shakes his head. "I do not think so."

"And if you think of something later?"

"I will tell you."

Brad nods once, satisfied. "You can put on some bottoms if you want now."

Sauli nods and gets to his feet. Brad gives him that cock-eyed look again, and Sauli has the good grace to blush.

"Thank you."

"That's better." Brad gets to his feet, gives Sauli's neck an affectionate squeeze. "You have twenty minutes to freshen up. I'll be in the kitchen when you're ready."

He's cutting apples for fruit salad when Sauli comes in—he glances at the clock—eighteen minutes later, face washed and a pair of sleep bottoms pulled on over the underwear. Brad offers him a smile and nods at the cushion next to his chair. "Have a seat."

Sauli arranges himself on the cushion, and Brad fixes him with a steady look. "I think there's something you haven't given me." Sauli tries giving him a confused look, but they've had this conversation already, and Brad knows he's just stalling. "Do you want to get it, or would you like to wait until tomorrow to talk to Adam?"

Sauli starts to scramble off the cushion. Then he sinks back. "I do not, that is, you did not say," he starts, and then stops, clearly flustered. Brad blinks at him. Then he restrains himself from slapping his own forehead—weeks of planning for every contingency, from injury to panic attacks to hard limits, and both of them forgot one of the most basic building blocks of what they're trying to do.

"You can just ask," Brad tells him. "You don't need permission to speak unless I tell you I want you to be quiet."

"May I get it?"

"Yes." Brad watches Sauli go, vaguely troubled and wondering what else they've forgotten—if anything important is involved or if it was just this, something so obvious Brad forgot to look at the trees for being overwhelmed by the forest. Then Sauli is back, holding his phone to his chest like a lifeline, hesitating again about handing it over. Brad holds out a hand.

"I won't damage it," he promises. "But I'm not going to let you get distracted with Angry Birds In The Mariana Trench, or whatever the most recent one is, either. You're going to learn to behave."

He waits. If they can't clear this, anything they might do after is a lost cause. Some people, Brad reminds himself, are just born vanilla, and it has nothing to do with whether or not they have a good teacher as much as—

Sauli drops his phone into Brad's outstretched hand.

Brad smiles.

\---------------------

"You washed _everywhere_?"

"Yes."

"The way Adam showed you." Brad is pretty sure the reason they took so long when Adam showed him is because they got distracted in the middle, but that's beside the point. There's no way Sauli was in and out of the shower in only nine minutes.

"Yes." Sauli meets Brad's raised eyebrow, and this time he doesn't blush. "It does not take long to wash my hair because there is not very much of it, and when I was in the Big Brother house we got only five minutes to wash. It is easy to learn how to do it quickly after you must rinse your privates with a garden hose."

Brad can't help smothering a snort of laughter. "Sounds pleasant."

"Only if you are a sadist." Sauli frowns. "No, the other. The person the sadist tortures."

"Masochist?"

"That is the word, thank you."

Brad walks around him, checks all over for soap and dirty places and doesn't find anything. "I need to learn this trick. Okay. In bed."

Sauli slides onto his side of the guest bed readily enough, but his eyes follow Brad out the door to the hall bathroom, and when Brad gets back Sauli is still staring, searching his face for Brad isn't sure what. Brad sits on the edge of the bed and throws the towel from his hair toward the hamper. It misses, and he makes a face before turning to Sauli. "Okay?"

Sauli bites his lip and nods. Brad flips back the covers on the other side of the bed. "After you."

There's another of those pauses, and Brad almost wonders if he's going to have to threaten to take away sweets after lunch tomorrow before Sauli slips beneath the covers and rolls over onto his side in a tight little ball. Brad follows and turns out the light before reaching out and putting a hand on Sauli's back.

"Seriously," he says, and feels Sauli take a deep breath. "Are you okay?"

Sauli shifts beneath the blankets, pulls a pillow to his chest hard enough for Brad to feel his shoulderblades flex, fidgets some more. Brad waits. 

"I am afraid."

"Of?"

Another of those long pauses. Brad rolls his eyes into the dark.

"Sauli," he scolds. "First rule. Honesty."

"I do not know." Another bout of fidgeting, and Brad restrains the urge to kick him. He's even worse than Adam, something Brad would've thought was impossible. "That is not exactly what I mean. What I mean is that you do not have to be afraid of things you have already experienced, and when, you know, if I . . . . I do not know what will happen."

"When you go into headspace."

"Yes. That."

"Say it," Brad commands, and when Sauli's foot connects with his shin for the third time he bites his tongue. "And please stop acting like we're on a dance floor. My legs are starting to feel like the victims of domestic abuse over here."

"Sorry." Another long pause. "When I . . . go into headspace. Yes. I do not know what will happen. Adam acts like he is not able to think at all."

"Headspace doesn't wipe out your brain cells," Brad tells him. "It's more like that place where you're sleeping, but you're kind of awake too, because you can still tell what's going on around you, like if somebody opens a door you hear it, and if somebody talks to you, you can answer and probably remember it later. At least for me." This time it's his turn to pause. "Does that scare you?"

"It scares me to not have control over what I say."

"You know you can safe out and not answer if there's something you're really not comfortable with me knowing right now, right?" Brad shifts onto his side, hand under his head. "You're not obligated to keep going just because you think you should."

"I know that, but . . . " Sauli fidgets more, and finally Brad turns on the lamp. Sauli's face is bright red, and when the light hits it he turns it into a deeper shadow. "It is, I mean that you say, that talking is the most important part of a scene, and maybe sometimes I do not know the words I want except in Finnish, and I feel what Adam calls ludicrous." 

Brad reaches out and turns Sauli's head toward him. "You don't have to feel that way because you're not totally fluent," Brad tells him. "I think you do a pretty good job in English, for what it's worth, but this isn't about being Shakespeare, it's about being honest and communicating what you need." He looks off toward the lamp. "Did Adam ever tell you how I ended up being a Dom?"

Sauli shakes his head. Brad takes a deep breath. He's been avoiding this for months, and maybe Sauli will let him do a little of the dancing he needs to do to keep himself sane telling this story. Maybe.

"Something happened to me, when I was a teenager," Brad begins. "I'd rather not go into details about that. Let's leave it at this, I've only ever told two people the whole story, and one of them is Adam." He waits for Sauli's nod before continuing. "Anyway. What happened was seriously the total opposite of great, and when I was fifteen I was told I deserved it because I asked for it. It wasn't what you're thinking," he interjects, when Sauli's eyes go wide and his mouth opens. "Not exactly. But that was when I started realising people can only take advantage of you if you let them, and I decided just because I'd asked for something didn't mean I deserved getting all the bullshit that went with it." 

"This is what Adam means, when he says that the cure is worse than the disease?"

Brad forces himself not to shudder. "Exactly."

"I understand." Sauli mimics Brad, pulls himself up on one elbow. "But how does that change what you do, how you and Adam are?"

"Because . . . Adam and I, when we first got together, he was a total Dom, and it _sucked_ ," Brad tells him. "I was having panic attacks when he even talked about having sex. And finally one day we talked it out and he . . . " Brad feels the corners of his mouth twitch up. "He told me subbing wasn't really his thing, but that he thought maybe if we played the other way around a couple of times, it could help me. And that if it didn't, he'd drop it."

"It was more his 'thing' than he knew," Sauli comments, and this time it's Brad's turn to nod.

"Totally. But he was right. I needed that breathing room, and he, especially after he started getting more roles and gigs, he needed the downtime you get as a sub. Neither one of us would've ever gotten there if we hadn't talked about it. And trust me, that conversation was _not_ pretty. I definitely remember Adam wiping my face with his shirt because I had snot all over my face from crying so hard."

Sauli shoves himself up to sitting and pulls Brad into his arms, nuzzles down into his neck and strokes the skin at his bare waist. Brad cuddles back, then tilts his head and leans up to peck Sauli's forehead.

"Grace is what you learn after you get the mechanics down," Brad says. "You don't have to be afraid to communicate. But if you hit a place where you really can't, that's what safewords are for, and there's nothing wrong with using them. Is this an okay place to say we can talk about this more in the morning if we need to? Because sweetheart, I'm about ready to drop like a fly over here."

Sauli pauses, then nods. "That is why we have practice, yes?" He flops back on the pillow. "This, it is a lot to think about."

"Think about it tomorrow," Brad commands. "Tonight I want you to sleep."

Brad clicks off the light and snuggles down into his pillow. He's almost asleep when he feels Sauli's fingers creep over his arm and tuck into his hand.

"Already I miss him so badly it hurts," he murmurs. Brad isn't awake enough to form a coherent reply, but he squeezes Sauli's fingers, and before he slides deep into sleep he hears Sauli's breathing go even and deep.

\----------------

"Good morning," Brad chirps, missing Adam and trying not to let it show as he pulls Sauli's head against his leg in a greeting. Brad is better at dinners but Adam is better at breakfasts, and finding new and inventive ways to feed Sauli every morning is turning into a challenge.

Sauli answers him in kind, and after a quick survey of the kitchen—eggs on toast was yesterday, fruit salad the day before that, Brad is trying his damnedest to save waffles and bacon for the morning after their first scene—Brad looks back down at Sauli. "All right," he says, and Sauli tilts his head in a way Brad likes: it's relaxed and not quite into headspace, but so close Brad is pretty sure he can have Sauli there by lunchtime and playing tonight. "I'm tired this morning. I want you to make breakfast."

Sauli gets off his cushion and up to his feet in a single graceful motion Brad kind of envies. "What would you like?"

"Can you make crepes?"

"Yes."

"If you make crepes, I'll cut fruit." He takes a closer look at Sauli's eyes. "And if you're very good and eat well, I think we have mangos."

Sauli's mouth opens, but nothing comes out, and Brad smiles. Very good. He puts his mouth up near Sauli's ear. "Crepes first," he murmurs, and as he heads for the fridge to get strawberries he hears Sauli open a cupboard.

They eat crepes with strawberries and blueberries dipped in yogurt, Brad taking bites and then offering Sauli squares of crepe to nibble, fingers brushing lips and Sauli's tongue chasing a stray runnel of blueberry juice down to Brad's palm. Oh, yes, Brad thinks, he's about ready—gone deep and relaxed, no longer following Brad anxiously with his eyes everywhere he goes. It's amazing what twelve days can do. He runs his free hand through Sauli's hair and looks at their shared empty plate. 

"Dessert?" he murmurs, and Sauli dips his head at once.

"Yes, please."

"You're being awfully good this morning," Brad comments, and scratches the back of Sauli's neck. "Should I be wondering what you want?"

Sauli just smiles and doesn't answer. Brad pushes himself out of his seat to go get the little dish of mango out of the fridge. This time he gets down on the floor, puts them face to face, and Sauli scoots back off his cushion to let Brad rest his knees. Brad resists the urge to push Sauli back onto the floor and do horrible, horrible things to him with what's left of the mango; it's not what they're here for, Sauli is Adam's and not some cute nameless twink for Brad to fuck around with, and Brad has fought too hard to get Sauli this far to fuck it up now.

He forces his fingers to stop trembling and finishes feeding Sauli his dessert, wondering what the fuck possessed him and stacking the dishes too abruptly when they're done. "Go wash," he says, and if Sauli is confused by the sudden change, he doesn't show it. Brad gives himself two deep breaths and half a chugged glass of cold water, and then, when he hears Sauli splashing in the hall bathroom, picks up his phone to give Adam a call. They deal with the trite—the weather in LA versus Vancouver, the ongoing saga of Adam's trouble with his soundboard guy—and the varied—the vibrator somebody threw Adam onstage last night, the irony of Brad being assigned Never Close Our Eyes for Pop-Up—and get well into the current before Sauli reappears, hands and face scrubbed and hair inexplicably soaking wet. Brad's never understood why Sauli feels the need to wet down his mohawk when he washes his face, but it's apparently not something that changes even when he reaches headspace.

"Hold on," Brad says, cutting off Adam's question about how Sauli's doing in midstream. "Why didn't you change your clothes?"

Sauli looks down at his sleep bottoms and T-shirt like the thought just occurred to him, then back up at Brad, who rolls his eyes and shakes his head.

"Hopeless _brat_ ," he says. Sauli bites his lip. "Go change. Make it quick if you want to talk to Adam, you already took a lot of time in the bathroom."

Sauli nods and pads off. Adam chuckles in Brad's ear. "You're not dressing him?"

Brad hesitates. Bites his tongue. Forces his mouth open. "Not today."

Sometimes, Brad isn't sure what exactly Adam hears that clues him in on things nobody else sees, and this is one of those times; he thought he was doing a good job sounding neutral, but Adam's voice immediately goes sharp and worried. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Brad tells him. "Well—nothing except the part where I almost jumped your boyfriend's bones on the kitchen floor this morning. You _have_ to have a vibrator or something somewhere that I can borrow. Please tell me you haven't actually gotten that boring in bed."

Adam lets out a laugh, bright and amused. "There's an OhMiBod in our closet," he agrees. "But why bother when you can have the real thing?"

"Because I did not go through the whole testing and celibacy spiel for you two so I could blow it over some fruit juice, Adam," Brad snaps back, irritated. "I told you I'd stay risk-free until I was done teaching him, and I—"

"—you've been sharing the same bed with him for _two weeks_ and you haven't even jerked each other off?" The level of disbelief Brad hears in Adam's voice is one he really thinks ought to be reserved for stuff like the moon being made of green cheese. "Jesus, Brad, why not?"

From some distant universe, Brad is aware his mouth is wide open, but he's in no state to rectify the problem. "I—what?"

"Baby," Adam says, and now he's laughing. "Brad. Did you seriously think—oh my god. Tan his ass. He was supposed to tell you, we talked about this. We both appreciate you respecting our boundaries, but a month is way too long to ask somebody to do what you're doing for us and not touch. Give him back to me in one piece and he's all yours."

Brad's mouth goes dry. Possibly because it's still hanging open, and he forces it shut with a click. "Is he on board with this?"

"I wouldn't bring it up if he wasn't," Adam answers. "And before you ask, I think it'd be hotter than hell."

Sauli wanders back in, still straightening his jeans. Brad's lips curl up in a slow, feral smile.

"You do, huh?"

"Better believe it," Adam answers. Brad hears a grin creep into his voice. "Why? What are you doing? Brad, come on!"

"Talk to your other half," is Brad's only answer, and he puts the phone in Sauli's hands.

\---------------------------------

The hardest part about this whole thing, Brad thinks, is that he can't just fuck Sauli into the mattress and call it a night.

No, there has to be some level of progression. And certainly he can demand Sauli not come until Brad has—although unless he and Adam have ever played that way, Brad doubts Sauli can actually do it just right off—but that doesn't change that he has to have a _reason_ to do it, and that makes laying out the whole thing necessary.

So he gets his shower before Sauli this time, and stays dressed while Sauli comes back into the bedroom naked except for the leather strip around his neck, shoulders relaxed and loose and eyes on Brad's face. Brad nods him up onto the bed, strips off his own shirt and stretches out. 

"So," he says. "Adam told me you had something to share, and didn't." He reaches out with one hand, traces a line down Sauli's chest, hooks a finger in his collar and watches him shiver. "Care to tell me why?"

"Ah," Sauli answers. "I, mm."

Brad raises an eyebrow. "Mm is not an answer."

Sauli fidgets and looks away. Brad turns his head with a single hand. 

"You know what this means, right?"

"Ah . . . ?"

"Hands and knees," Brad orders. "Or—wait. No." He swings his legs over the edge of the bed. "If you're going to keep secrets like a little kid, I'll treat you like one." He grabs Sauli's ankle and tugs. Sauli flops over onto his side, then onto his fours and clambers down the bed. Brad takes a long look at his eyes, hunting for anything out of place, fear or anxiety or a safeword waiting to happen, and sees nothing. Good.

Sauli only hesitates for a second before sitting next to Brad and letting himself be dragged into Brad's lap, face down and ass up, and Brad takes a moment to appreciate the view and run over Sauli's safewords in his head before raising his hand and laying a stinging swat across Sauli's bare ass. Sauli jerks against his leg and lets out a loud gasp. Brad pauses long enough to tweak his nipple.

"You missed your chance to be vocal," Brad tells him. "Now would be a good time to keep your mouth shut, because every sound I hear, I'm adding another one of these." He brings his hand down again. "That's two."

He counts out, sees Sauli's tongue creep between his lips right around the fifth strike, and runs his hand over Sauli's ass before leaning forward to speak in his ear.

"Don't do that," he murmurs, and touches Sauli's tongue with his fingertips. "If you slip at all, you're gonna get hurt." He rummages on the bed behind him for the belt he lost before Sauli got to bed and folds it over once. "Bite on this if you need it."

Sauli accepts the belt between his teeth, and when Brad counts six he barely tenses. Brad wishes he could speed it up, get it over, and skip straight to the praise—he was afraid this part was going to turn into a disaster, and he's pleasantly surprised by how much aplomb Sauli seems to be taking it with—but he also doesn't want to give the wrong impression, and so he counts out, measured, seven, eight, nine, ten and then one for Sauli's noisemaking at the beginning.

"Are we getting the message yet?" he asks, and when Sauli fidgets—heavily, and all in his shoulders—Brad slips the belt out of his mouth. Sauli shakes his head like he's trying to get water out of his hair.

"Yes," he says, and when Brad lays a hand across his back, not letting him up, he shifts again. "I am sorry I waited to tell you."

"Better," Brad comments, and lets Sauli up to his knees. "Lie down."

"How?"

Brad considers. He doesn't want to come in thirty seconds like he's fifteen and sneaking looks at next door's babysitter again, but leaving Sauli high and dry also isn't an option, and so finally he reaches out with one hand and topples a startled Sauli neatly onto his side.

"How about we say, since you were so good about taking your spanking, you can pick, as your reward?" Brad suggests, and bites his tongue as Sauli rolls onto his back, grabs a pillow, and wedges it under his tailbone. He slips out of his bottoms, glad he didn't throw his jeans back on after his shower—some things should not get a skintight view lest physical injury result, and this is definitely one of them. Then he pauses.

"What do you think, should we call Adam?" he asks, and unless Sauli disagrees vehemently his opinion is mostly irrelevant—Brad took a panicky crash-course in encrypting and securing as soon as his and Adam's mostly-decent pictures hit the internet, and Brad isn't worried about someone else kibitzing—but if Sauli isn't on board, Brad needs to know before he starts something he can't easily stop. "Is this a favourite or something you saved just for me?"

He grabs his phone off the nightstand. Sauli stares, mouth agape and eyes like saucers, as Brad scrolls his contacts. "I think he should know how well you're doing."

He listens—for a _no_ or a _don't_ , this time, as well as _sanomat_ and _tikkari_ , for any panicked-sounding syllables he can't understand, but Sauli's still just laying with his legs bent looking like home-brewed sin in a cup, ready to be folded up as Brad requires and eaten with a spoon, mouth still open like he can't believe Brad just suggested speakerphone.

Except, of course, speakerphone isn't what Brad has in mind, and as soon as Adam's sleepy, puzzled face appears on the screen, Brad docks the phone.

"And now," he announces, "for your feature presentation."

Brad circles the bed to give them a minute, let one of them or both of them safe out before anything really gets started, but the next time he glances at his phone screen Adam's light is on and he's staring at them both like he means to drink them in like water in a desert, and Sauli's eyes are on Brad, watching him crawl across the bed and hunt the lube out of the nightstand. Brad reaches for Sauli's hands and stretches them over his head, curling his fingers around the slats in the headboard.

"If you need to let go, you can," he says. "But if you move your arms without permission the spanking you had earlier is going to look like a light tickle."

Sauli nods at him, then closes his eyes with a gasp as Brad slips between his legs and lets his weight rest, hips and bellies pressed together, lets a long breath out alongside Sauli's neck, grateful for the pressure. Brad rests there, lets himself breathe and then grinds their hips together, one long slow stroke, hears Sauli gasp and then hold himself still. Brad reaches up and runs his fingers through Sauli's hair.

"You don't have to be quiet now," he murmurs into Sauli's collarbone, and gets a long, low "mmmmm" in response. Brad glances left at his phone, where Adam looks like he's trying to figure out a way to crawl to them right through the screen, and rolls his hips again before latching onto Sauli's neck and licking away the salty prickle of sweat he can taste there, sucking a small red mark just below Sauli's collar.

Brad spent his afternoon pondering Adam's promise, and at one point he actually had a plan for how the night should go, but that first long slide of skin against skin throws it all out the window and leaves Brad nibbling Sauli's jaw and lips and rocking their bodies together, eventually searching with one hand for the bottle he tossed on the bed and popping the top with one hand. He slicks up his fingers and slides a hand between them to rub lube where it's desperately needed and then gets a handful of foreskin. His mouth drops open—he knew Sauli was uncut, but it never occurred to him what that _meant_ , actually, and Sauli just gives him a cheeky grin when Brad breathes out "oh, you lucky little bitch."

Then he squeezes, and the grin disappears as Sauli's mouth falls open, Brad fully intent on exploring his new toy, sliding down Sauli's body to take a closer look than thirty seconds of nudity before bed will allow, running his hand down Sauli's shaft and watching, fascinated, as the skin moves and pulls back and leaves something Brad's a little more familiar with. He leans forward and takes a curious lick—experience is the best teacher, and all that—and watches Sauli squirm and gasp and tighten his fingers around the slats in the headboard. Brad grins before leaning forward to do more than lick. This could be _fun_.

He waits until he has Sauli right where he wants him—on the edge, half a breath from tipping right over—and then he lets go, slides up the bed to rest his weight on Sauli's hips again, rocks and grinds and watches as Sauli lets out a delicious series of whines, a grin spreading across Brad's face when Sauli's eyes squeeze tightly shut and his legs creep up the bed, knees pressed against Brad's hips, and when Sauli finally gains a little traction and bucks his hips up off the bed Brad actually forgets to check the camera to see what Adam's doing through the sudden whitehot sear of pleasure.

He rests his face in the crook of Sauli's neck until he can get his breathing back under control, raises his head to check the screen, and sees Adam's face with eyes half closed, cheeks flushed and lips parted, and smiles. He strokes Sauli's hair a time or two, feels the rhythm of his heartbeat and then turns his head gently with a single hand.

"Look," he says, and watches Sauli's eyes flutter open to take in Adam, most of a continent away and still with them. Sauli takes in something a little too shuddery to be a gasp, and Brad sees his fingers flex around the headboard. Brad traces fingers up Sauli's arm, a gentle touch up to his wrist, folds his fingers around Sauli's hand and rubs a thumb over his skin. 

"You can let go now."

As soon as he says it Sauli reaches a hand out for the screen and touches it with a single finger. Adam turns his head, and Brad watches him open his eyes and reach back. He bites his lip and resists the urge to scold them both; neither of them is breaking the rules of the night, and demanding they move is ridiculous. Brad shifts around until he has a reasonable amount of their attention, then stretches.

"I'm gonna go rinse off," he declares. "I hate going to sleep all sweaty." Then he drops his hand to Sauli's neck, a light touch to ground them together. "Will you be okay?"

The grin that answers him is large and dazed and almost stupidly content. "Yes." The corners of his mouth fold in a subtle way Brad can't exactly describe, and then his eyes flutter shut before he opens them to look back at the screen. "But I think I might be sleep before you come back."

Brad doesn't bother correcting Sauli's orgasm-addled grammar; instead he drops a kiss on Sauli's cheek and swings his legs off the bed. 

He settles down in a corner of the shower, leaning against the cool tiles while the room fills up with steam, and lets his hands travel while he thinks idly about what Sauli and Adam must be doing now: sharing what Brad thinks of as kiss-words, halfway between "I love you" and flat-out dirty talk, both falling slowly asleep lying on their sides so they can stay in contact as long as possible, and then the Adam in his head says _How was it?_ and Sauli answers, slow lazy grin and sinuous long stretch of back and shoulders _amazing_ and Adam's sleepy smile turns wicked, eyes flicking down Sauli's body to where the screen cuts him off, shifting under his far-away blankets and resting one hand, deceptively casual, under his head, saying _we should do it again_ as his bedsheets slide from his chest down to the dip of his bare waist, and—

—and Brad slams a hand to his mouth so hard it stings, bites down on his tongue before either of them can hear him through the door, turns the shower from steamy-warm to icy-cold and then straight to off with a single hard yank, wraps a towel around his waist and another around his hair to cross the hall and peep into the bedroom, heart thudding like he just finished a hard marathon instead of a lazy jerkoff session.

Sauli is asleep on his side, curled up around the large square pillow he took from Adam's bed at the beginning of the week, legs trailing under the coverlet like jellyfish tendrils. On the screen of Brad's phone Adam's hotel room is dark, the light glow of Adam's docked phone showing a pale outline of his face: eyes closed, lips parted, breathing long and deep and even.

They were never talking about him at all.

Brad lets out a long breath.

He's in serious trouble.

\-------------------

Sauli is late to the kitchen.

Brad barely notices; he's too busy banging drawers and cupboards, searching for a set of measuring cups he can actually use, and when he finally gives up and slams shut the last drawer and turns around Sauli is standing there. Brad jumps.

"I am sorry. I slept over."

"Overslept," Brad corrects absently. "Where are your measuring cups? Not yours. Adam's."

"We use the same ones." Sauli reaches past him, opens a cupboard, and pulls out a set of three glasses, all stacked neatly inside each other, marked off in millilitres. Brad bites his tongue so he won't swear. "Are you missing one? We had one for a litre, but it broke."

Brad stays silent for a moment. Then he reaches for the little recipe card he brought with him from his apartment and holds it out. Sauli takes it and reads. Brad watches his eyebrows knit together. Then they smooth out, and his eyes turn into a pair of smiling crescents.

"Ah!" Sauli opens another door, this one with a bunch of Adam's "help, I cook like a bachelor" recipes taped to the inside. He picks an index card off the door and hands it to Brad, still smiling. "I can help you with measures that are not here. These are just the ones I needed from a book I got here."

Brad nods and tapes the card to the outside of a cabinet. Then he feels arms around him from behind, and fights very hard to not either tense up, or lean back and sigh. Instead he just makes his shoulders relax.

"Last night," Sauli says, and nuzzles at Brad's hair. "I felt safe. I did not feel like you would hurt me, even when you spanked me." His arms tighten around Brad's waist, and Brad resists the urge to squirm. "Is this how it is, when you and Adam are in headspace, that it feels this way?"

"I think Adam needs to go deeper than I do to be okay with it," Brad answers, and tries to keep his voice even. "I've always liked rougher than he has. But I think so." He slips out of Sauli's arms. "I want to make waffles."

"I will cut fruit," Sauli tells him, and when Brad raises an eyebrow Sauli offers an unapologetic grin. "We learned how to make fruit butter."

"Got it," Brad agrees, and heads for the fridge to get milk. Behind him, Sauli opens the knife drawer. 

"Is there, I mean—mm." Sauli pauses. "We are not doing anything today, yes?"

"I have a meeting at Pop-Up this afternoon." 

"That is not what I meant."

Brad pretends to hunt for eggs, like he can't see them right behind the giant pitcher of smoothie that never seems to leave the fridge. "I didn't plan anything." He finally gives up on the charade and pulls out the eggs. "I don't think it's a good idea to whiplash back and forth between roles, but I'm not an expert."

"I was not asking that, either." There's a long pause, and it's only when Brad turns to look at him that he keeps going. "You said that you wanted to teach me. Is this, what we have done, is that all there is to learn? Because it seems very simple."

"Once you've learned it, it seems simple. So does two plus two equals four." Brad grabs a bowl. Sauli grabs his arm.

"Why will you not answer me?"

Brad bites his lip. Sauli slept like a dead man, but Brad's night was populated with ups and downs and three in the morning bathroom calls and dreams just vivid enough to disturb his sleep without being remembered properly in the morning. He's really not in the mood for this conversation.

"I'm sorry." He sets down the bowl. "I didn't sleep well and I feel bitchy. I'm actually really happy with how you did last night." He bites down hard on his tongue. "If you're not comfortable, we can do it again. But I suggested it so you could get an idea where Adam's head is when he's under, and it seemed like you got a pretty good handle on that last night."

"I think so, yes." Suddenly there are arms around Brad's waist, squeezing hard and friendly and tight, and Sauli offers him a brilliant smile. "So we will have breakfast, and then you will go to work, yes?"

"Yeah."

"And tonight, you will teach me something else." Sauli grins again as Brad tenses and turns. "Adam says that you make very good jambalee."

"Jambalaya," Brad tells him. "It's Cajun."

"That is also what he said." Sauli slips neatly away, takes a strawberry out of a package and picks up his knife to core it neatly into the compost bag. "I will teach you to make baked apples if you will teach me to make jambalay."

"Jambalaya," Brad says again. Sauli wrinkles his nose.

"I would like to learn to make that soup Adam likes that should have a proper name, like perhaps typeräruoka," Sauli says, and Brad's learned just enough Finnish to almost drop his whisk laughing.

For now, at least, they're okay again.

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------

"I think, you know," Brad says, as they cut apples. "Maybe. Tonight?" And then, if all goes well, he can get the hell out of here. 

Sauli stays silent. Brad watches him peel most of an apple, brows furrowed and mouth turned down in a concentrated frown, and bites his tongue before he can do something stupid, like leaning across the table to kiss the expression away. At last Sauli flips a long red curl of peel into the trash pile and looks up. The buckle on his collar glints in the light from the lamp.

"No."

Brad blinks at him. "We have—what, six days until Adam gets back, and you haven't practised at all," he points out. Sauli shrugs.

"A man cannot build a house without a hammer and nails."

Brad throws his hands up. "You told me you thought you had a handle on it."

"I do." Sauli puts down his knife, looks directly into Brad's eyes. "What I do not 'have a handle on' is you. There is something you are not telling me that is very important, and if everything must be based on truth and honesty then I cannot Dom for you because you do not trust me and you will not be honest with me."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You do, because you have told me you have only shared it with two others before." Sauli raises a hand to the collar. "I trusted you to put this on me even though I was afraid. I believed that Adam would not leave me alone with someone he thought would hurt me, and I trust Adam. So, I trust you. But you will not trust me even though you must know that any hurt I did to you would hurt Adam more, and I would rather cut off my own hands than hurt him. If everything you have taught me is true, I cannot Dom for you."

Brad looks down at his knife. There's a curl of peel stuck to it. In the light from the back door, it looks like it's bleeding.

He thinks about running away. He thinks about opening his mouth and saying _silver_ and putting an end to the conversation, and then he thinks of Sauli's embarrassed, stumbling admission in the middle of their first night and instead what he says is "I can't talk about this inside" before he stands up. He means to head for the back door and hope Sauli follows him, but getting up takes everything he's got, and then he just stands there, head down and shoulders up, trembling like a frightened bird.

Sauli comes around the table, and the next thing Brad feels is an arm around his waist and a hand in his, Sauli's face pressed into his hair, lips to his ear. 

"I will walk with you," he says, and with a little gentle urging he gets Brad headed for the back door.

It's Sauli who arranges them on the porch swing, his legs crossed and arms relaxed, Brad curled up in the opposite corner staring out at the pool. They sit quietly, Sauli not speaking, Brad trying to find the courage to open his mouth and begin. At last he spits out something, anything, in the hopes of getting Sauli to get him started.

"I'm pretty sure I knew I was gay by the time I was six," he says. "Not that I knew what that meant. But every once in awhile in church it'd come up and, yeah, I had a pretty good idea that's what I was." He licks his lips and wishes for a glass of water. "When I was fourteen, there was this sermon," he continues, and tries to swallow. There's a click in his throat, and then, somehow, miraculously, a bottle of water in Sauli's hand. It's warm—stuck in the cooler Adam and Sauli keep on the back porch, with no ice to cool it—but it's liquid and soothing and good. "The preacher at the church I grew up in was comparing what he called 'the homosexual disease' to cancer. I spent about a week having nightmares about being eaten from the inside out by gay like that guy in _Alien_ and then I came out to my mother." He closes his eyes. "I asked her to fix me."

There's a pair of arms wrapped loosely around his shoulders, and Brad finally gives up, gives in, lets himself fall into them and damn the consequences later. He can't do this alone. "Ex-gay therapy is a bunch of bullshit, but there's probably counsellors out there who at least try to do the right thing. Mine, not so much. I had to wear a rubber band on my wrist and every time I looked at a boy I was supposed to snap it, even when I started getting bruises. Every week I'd go in and he'd ask if I'd touched myself and what I thought about when I did it, and he'd check my wrists and—he didn't _yell_ , he'd scold me in this really condescending disappointed voice like I was a puppy who peed on the floor and ask me if I thought God liked to see what I was imagining. Once he brought in a couple of Playboys and asked me to look at them and describe how I felt about what I saw. I don't think he even cared that all I could come up with was Photoshop details. It was what he was getting away with that he cared about."

"And you felt like you were not in a place to refuse."

"Right," Brad agrees, and curls into Sauli's arm. "And then one week I told him I wasn't comfortable looking at porn and he said 'I thought you asked to be cured.' I'll never forget that. He never even asked why. I'm pretty sure at that point he could've brought in tailor-made naked gay makeout pictures and I wouldn't have wanted to see. By then I felt like anything he touched was automatically dirty."

"What happened then?" Sauli runs his fingers through Brad's hair, and Brad accepts the touch—gentle, comforting.

"I sat there," Brad tells him. "Today, if someone said that to me, I'd get up and walk out. But I didn't know how to do even that. I was too scared. When I left I asked my mother if she could ask him to not bring it in anymore because I was afraid I was sending the women in those magazines to hell by looking, and she never took me back."

The arm around Brad's waist grows suddenly, imperceptibly possessive. "Good." There's a long pause, and then Sauli touches a single gentle finger to the corner of Brad's eye. "You were right, when you first told me this thing had happened even a little. You did not deserve any of it." Another pause, and in it Brad can almost feel Sauli gathering his thoughts. "This is why you do not like to sub? It reminds you of not being able to walk away."

"Kind of." Brad sits up and pushes his hair out of his face, but doesn't pull away from Sauli's arm when Sauli follows him. "It's not just that. I mean, it is, but it isn't. I—well, you know what Adam's like, he likes to talk."

"It is the describing that bothers you."

"Yes." Brad looks down at his fingers. "I know it's stupid, but—I've never totally been able to shake the feeling that any time I lay it all out like that, the way a lot of Doms do or ask you to do . . . I'm going to get parsed apart, and I can't stand that. Not that way. I can get to that point where you're supposed to let it all go and let your Dom carry you. I don't have a problem with that. I'm just not comfortable spelling it out and it's such a stupid hard limit to have, I mean, everybody has them, but who ever heard of a sub who's afraid of _talking_?"

Sauli turns Brad's head with a single hand. "It is not stupid, and you have the right to be afraid," he answers. "Is that not what you told me?" 

Brad opens his mouth. Nothing comes out, and after a few seconds Sauli draws Brad's head down to his shoulder.

"I will not promise that I will not have to ask you anything," he says. "I do not know your body or your mind well enough to say that. But I will promise that anything I ask, I will do with respect and treat your answers the same way. You do not need to be afraid I will hurt you."

Brad nods against Sauli's shoulder. Sauli strokes his hair. "It is possible that I am wrong. But I think, because of how I know you, that it is not the fear of the talking that keeps you from doing it. You are very good at saying what you think. I think perhaps it is the fear of being made to be ashamed again. And that, it is a thing I will not put up with. You are the one who told me the very first time we talked about Domming Adam, that this is not a thing that should be about shame, even when on the surface it looks like it is. I will not let it be about you holding yourself back because you are ashamed, when you have nothing to be ashamed of." He rests his cheek on Brad's hair. "Please do not feel that way with me."

Brad weighs his options. Then he seeks out Sauli's hand to squeeze. "I'll try."

"That is all I can ask."

Brad feels a hand on the back of his neck, light but insistent, a quiet question punctuated by a short and dangling strip of leather.

He bows his head, and lets Sauli buckle the collar into place.

\----------------------

"You are very quiet."

"I didn't know small talk was a requirement." Brad picks at his salad. Sauli reaches across the table and pinches as high up on Brad's arm as he can reach.

"Ow!"

"If you do not like it, then do not make the sass." Sauli sits back and eyes him calmly. Brad finally lowers his eyes to his plate.

"I'm sorry."

"That is better." Sauli takes a huge bite of salad, then scrapes the last of his greens to the side and takes a couple of chicken strips out of the bowl between them. Brad's never heard of marinating chicken in Italian dressing before, but apparently it's a few different kinds of amazing, because Sauli makes a couple of approving noises before pushing the bowl at Brad. "Eat." He taps Brad's plate with his fork. "If you are not ready, we will not try tonight. But you must eat. You will get ill."

Brad takes a strip of chicken and nibbles it, and after awhile Sauli goes back to his own food. Brad takes a deep breath. "We went over assignments at Pop-Up today."

"Mm?" Sauli looks up, his mouth full of chicken. Brad nibbles at his own. 

"I'm still working on Never Close Our Eyes," he continues. "I didn't want to say anything to my boss, because as far as she knows, Adam and I are just friends. But I'm having serious issues with some of the material because there are totally _awesome_ jokes there that I don't think Adam would have a problem with, but . . . " He pauses, fork hovering over what's left of his salad. "I'm afraid of outing him by mistake. Or, you know, bringing up old history, which is bullshit tabloid fodder I'm not really interested in rehashing."

"What is the part that is giving you trouble?"

"When they're in the scanners and everybody around him is going all zombie, and he's just pretending to do what he's told," Brad answers. "The first thing that popped into my head—which is usually what goes on the screen—was 'Adam has serious control issues,' but . . . " Brad shrugs helplessly.

"I do not think that is a problem," Sauli answers. "He has said it himself in public many times." He rests his chin on his fingers. "If I had to write a newspaper article about him that I thought might be a problem, I would find quotes from interviews other people had done, and let him talk for me. Anything he will not say, I will not say. And very often, when he gets excited, he will say things—not things he should not say, but maybe in a way that is a little silly, and if you need to make the joke, you can use his own words. It is an easy solution to the problem."

Brad looks up from his chicken. "Do—" He pauses, swallows his mouthful of chicken breast. "I don't even know where I'd start looking."

"There are fans who save all his interviews. If you put in two or three hours it would not be hard to find, I do not think." Sauli smiles at him. "Tutka is not filming this week and I have already written my blog. I could help you."

"I'd like to know why you get paid a living wage for four hours of work a week," Brad grumbles, and reaches for his tea. Sauli smiles wider.

"It is compensation because a few years ago I allowed several million people to watch me eat, sleep, and urinate for three months," he answers. Brad's tea shoots back into his glass, part of it through his nose. Sauli chuckles at him.

"When you are done," he says, "I have dessert. But first we must clear the table."

Brad looks down at his food and shoves the last bite of salad into his mouth. "That was mean," he complains, and Sauli chuckles again. "No, really. You follow _that_ with _dessert_?" 

"If you keep yelling at me, your dessert will be two scoops of white ass with a cherry-red top," Sauli tells him, and if the metaphor is a little mixed it doesn't stop Brad from blushing instead of giggling. He stacks their forks on top of his plate and bites his lip before he can say something stupid, then puts the little stack of dishes in the sink and turns around before there's suddenly a piece of cantaloupe being pressed to his lips. He blinks in surprise, then opens his mouth obediently to accept it. Sauli pushes the cube of fruit into Brad's mouth, runs his free hand through Brad's hair and smiles.

"Come with me," he says, and leads Brad to the cushion by the table. There's a sofa cushion sitting next to it now, and Brad has only a moment to wonder why before Sauli settles down on the new cushion and gestures to Brad that he should kneel. 

Brad does, and Sauli feeds him a few pieces of melon before reaching up for something on the table. "Dessert," he says, and offers Brad a forkful of—Brad leans forward, nibbles—bread pudding, a thing Brad loves to eat and never has the patience to make. Brad lets out a noise too short to be a moan and takes a bite of what's left on the fork.

They make their way through the piece of pudding, taking turns nibbling what's on the fork and, after Sauli gives Brad a sip of tea, exchanging a single kiss Brad would die before confessing to wanting another of. Then Sauli puts the fork back up on the plate and leans forward.

"There is one more piece on the plate," he murmurs into Brad's ear. "And it is yours. But first I want to ask if you are ready."

Under normal circumstances, Brad would tell him to hand over the damned bread pudding, or maybe make a smooth grab for it and calmly chew the last piece while Sauli tried to figure out how to get mad. Even under normal subbing circumstances, Brad might say "I don't want it" just to spite him.

But these aren't normal circumstances, and after he looks down at his own hands—folded obediently in his lap—and at Sauli's—resting gently on Brad's forearms—he just looks up into Sauli's eyes.

And nods.

\----------------

"The bed is behind you, if you sit down now."

Brad wants to let go of Sauli's hands to check. Instead he sits, scoots back a little to make himself comfortable and swings his legs up when Sauli taps one of them with a gentle hand. It occurs to him in a fuzzy kind of way that Sauli is a little bit of a genius—having his eyes closed makes it better, easier. He rolls to his left and runs into what feels like a nest of bath towels. Sauli rests a hand in the small of his back.

"Turn onto your back," he says, and Brad settles into the towels. The mattress dips suddenly—Sauli climbing onto the bed. Something cool touches Brad's shoulder, and he shudders.

"Stay still," Sauli commands. "And trust me." 

Brad nods and tries to focus on the touch meandering down to his collarbone before it can tickle and make him jump again, but then it disappears and there's another cool touch by his knee. He tenses, and Sauli slaps his hip. 

"I said that you should stay still," Sauli scolds. Brad bites his lip and nods again, and when the cool, jumping touch suddenly descends on his warm and smarting hip he bites his tongue to keep from shying away—as temperature play goes it's not the most extreme thing he's ever felt, but he wasn't expecting it and it tickles.

Eventually he gets used to the coolness of the touch—not fingers, it's too thin to be fingers, but it's light and gentle and followed all over his body by the low and pleasant sound of Sauli humming, or maybe singing softly in Finnish; Brad isn't totally sure which. Finally the touch gets replaced with actual fingers, Sauli tracing patterns on Brad's arms and belly and hips, and Brad catches himself from jumping when Sauli speaks, suddenly, softly in his ear. Then he smiles, a loose little thing more intent than action—he was almost asleep, ready to give over the reins in a way he hasn't for years.

"Open your eyes."

Brad does, and finds himself looking straight into Sauli's face, smiling down at him. Sauli runs a single finger down Brad's face.

"You are very pretty," he opines. "But not very good at being still."

"I'm sorry," and Brad barely recognises the sound of his own voice. Sauli chuckles into his ear.

"I will forgive you this time," he says, and Brad is still thinking enough for something about that to ping the part of his brain trying to cling to consciousness, but there's not enough there to shake him awake and so he just says "thank you" in his new dreaming voice, and then he looks down and sees what the cool touch on his body was.

There are words across his skin written in what might be Crayola markers, "trust" and "mine" and "own" in Sauli's full and looping cursive alongside words Brad doesn't know, like "vaalia" and "kuulua" and "halu," and when Brad raises his eyes back to Sauli's there's a smile waiting for him. Sauli brushes his thumbs over Brad's cheekbones and lowers his head. Brad gasps, and when his back arches up Sauli gives a warning tweak to the nipple he's not sucking, leaving it peaked and waiting for attention while Brad has to stare up at the ceiling and do nothing or risk getting worse than a tweak. Sauli raises his head, and Brad whines. Sauli smiles.

"I like your sounds better than your moving," he announces, and presses a kiss to Brad's stomach before hitching himself up the bed to rest, hip to hip, chest to chest, cock to cock. Brad bites his lip and focuses very hard on not moving; if Sauli has any kind of denial in his store of punishments, Brad doesn't want to find out the hard way. 

Sauli looks happy to lay on Brad's chest from now until the end of the age, and it slowly dawns on Brad that all of their discussions over the last two months, every tenet of domination he's ever laid down–from "the two biggest words after SSC are trust and honesty" to "this is just my personal opinion, but I think scenes work best when you approach them with the screenwriter's question in your head"–comes down to this, whether or not it's all been a charade since the beginning when he first put his belt in Sauli's hand and told him to strike the legs of a sturdy table so Brad could judge his aim. He has to decide, now, whether or not he thinks he can trust Sauli for a lot more than a couple of slaps across the face.

And he has a very pretty Finn looking down at him, his words written all over Brad's skin, while he tries to think.

At last he does what he did the last time he tried to scene as Adam's bottom, not a little whipping but flat-out submission, and takes a deep breath as he closes his eyes. The image that forms behind them–what comes into his head when he's not really thinking anything at all–he'll let that be his touchstone.

What comes is a night about a week before Adam left, all three of them sitting on the couch watching Monty Python and idly feeding each other popcorn, Sauli going into fits of helpless giggles over the fake subtitles while Adam grinned over his head and tried–and failed–to explain why Swede jokes are so funny to Finns, and the popcorn bowl almost getting turned over on the floor–until Sauli caught it, bumping heads with Adam and both of them breaking into another fit of laughter that had nothing to do with the words on the screen.

And so Brad opens his eyes, and looks up into Sauli's patient and waiting face, and says one word. 

"Please?"

The grin Sauli gives him isn't the kind Brad would normally associate with a Dom, but it's followed by a long slide of skin on decorated skin and Sauli reaching down to hitch Brad's legs up until his feet are flat on the bed and Brad throws his head back and whines, rewarded with one of Sauli's soft, musical laughs and a lick up the side of his neck. Then a hand falls on top of his, fingers twining gently around his own, and Sauli's other hand skims Brad's side–warm and light and wonderful–as he leans up to Brad's ear.

"What is the thing," he murmurs, "that you always want a lover to do to you, but nobody ever does it?" Brad's mouth falls open, and Sauli must see the hurt Brad can feel welling up, because he puts a single gentle finger on Brad's lip. "You are trying very hard," he says. "And I would like to do that thing, as a reward. But you have never told me what it is."

The sound out of Brad's mouth is supposed to be an "oh," but it kind of loses its shape when it hits his lips, and Sauli takes his finger away. Brad closes his eyes and takes another deep breath; he can do this, if Sauli helps him, but he can't just spit out a babble of words the way Adam would.

"May I move my head?"

"Are you afraid to look at me?"

Brad nibbles his lip. That isn't the problem; being afraid of Sauli's eyes is like being afraid of getting a flu shot. The fear that's like jumping off a cliff and hoping there's a trampoline down there is something completely different, and Brad almost says 'no' to simplify matters before Sauli's fingers twitch, a gentle movement in Brad's hand, and he breathes out a "yes" instead–and then–

"But that's not important, I'd just–rather show you."

"You may. But then you must move it back."

Brad turns his head all the way to the right to display the long line of his neck. "Nobody ever bites me here," he murmurs. "A lot of guys think it's 'juvenile' if you want marks there."

"Mm." The sound on Sauli's lips is disapproving in a subtle way Brad is pretty sure isn't aimed at him, and before Brad can turn his head back to face the music Sauli rests two fingers on Brad's cheek and scrapes his teeth over the soft skin behind Brad's ear. Brad whimpers. "Here?"

"There," Brad agrees, and makes more helpless sounds as warm tongue and sharp teeth worry at his neck, scraping and licking around the edges of words and tracing the cup of his ear quickly enough he has to fight not to jump, gasping and bucking his hips when there's a sudden sharp, direct bite to his neck, moaning when Sauli suddenly pulls away, and then there's a sharp sting on his cheek and Brad's mouth falls open in shock.

"I told you to _be still_ ," Sauli reprimands. "You do not listen very well."

"I'm sorry," Brad whispers. He can still feel the warmth from the slap on his cheek, and when Sauli bites his ear Brad whines.

"I will teach you better." Sauli reaches a single hand out for the nightstand and whatever supplies he's laid there, and Brad breathes, in and out and back in, trying to calm his heartbeat and steady his arms and legs before Sauli touches him again.

The next touch isn't on his arms or legs.

Brad takes in a sharp breath, and Sauli traces a single finger in a circle, running light over sensitive skin. Brad's own fingers twitch, wanting to tangle in the bedspread or maybe Sauli's hair, and then he squeezes his eyes shut because he's not supposed to move, and any second now– 

–Sauli folds his fingers over Brad's, and then tucks them into a fold of towel. Brad lets out a long breath, grateful for the sensation of the fabric and something to hold onto, twist his fingers in while Sauli's fingers twist somewhere else, warm and dark and slick and Brad isn't sure he can take a whole lot more of this. He whines and tries not to squirm on Sauli's fingers, and there's a pause before Sauli's face appears above Brad's belly, one eyebrow raised. 

"You have a comment?"

Brad bites down hard on his tongue. Then the bright red mark forming on his neck gives a little throb, and he takes another of those steadying breaths.

"Do something _else_ ," he begs. "Anything else, I don't care, just please stop teasing me."

"But I like to tease you," Sauli protests. "You make pretty noises and ah, your face. But very well. I will stop teasing." And suddenly his head dives so fast Brad almost thinks he collapsed until he realises his entire cock all the way down to his balls is down Sauli's throat, and then he makes a noise no scriptwriter could transliterate and twists his fingers in the towel so hard he can feel a couple of fluffs break right off it. His legs try to creep up the bed, and he forces them back down to the gentle angle Sauli set them in before he can rock his hips and get in even more trouble. Sauli clamps his hands down on Brad's feet, right on top of _mine_ on one side and _rakkaus_ on the other, and Brad lets his legs tense–he can't move now, can't pull away and can't get in trouble if he's being held, and he lets out a long wail Adam would probably be proud of, lets his legs strain against Sauli's hands and god, the relief, he can't move but he can _push_ , and when he wails again and his legs fall to the sides Sauli leaves off with a single long lick and smiles up at him. 

Brad pants, and Sauli climbs up the bed to pull him close. Brad latches on–arms around Sauli's shoulders, ankles over his knees.

"Don't," he begs, right into Sauli's collarbone. "Don't go anywhere."

"I am here." Sauli's hand cards gently through Brad's hair. "And you, what you have done tonight, is very strong and brave and I am proud of you, and very glad . . . mm." Brad hears the slight downturn of a frown in his voice. "I do not know a word. But, more happy than happy. You understand, when I say like that?"

Brad nods against his shoulder. Sauli lets one hand rest just below Brad's collar, a light and comforting touch Brad is glad to accept.

"Then, that is how I feel, that you shared with me, even though you were afraid." Sauli kisses Brad's forehead, and Brad buries his face in Sauli's neck. "And I am very proud that you tried to keep still, even though it was not easy for you." He strokes Brad's back. "You need the shower before these become permanent." He traces a word on Brad's arm. "Come, I will wash you."

Sauli wiggles out of Brad's starfish grip so efficiently Brad panics. Then he reaches for Brad's hands and pulls him neatly off the bed. Brad leans against him and tries not to shake. He can't make his legs work this time; this time, he's done, and after a few seconds of murmured encouragement Sauli slides an arm under Brad's legs and lifts him off the floor. 

"Do not squirm," Sauli warns. "I do not want to drop you."

Brad just keeps his face buried in Sauli's collarbone until Sauli leans against the shower door and asks him to turn on the water before stepping inside and settling Brad neatly on the wooden bench against the wall, reaching for a washcloth as soon as his hands are free. Brad closes his eyes and lets himself be touched, soothing brush of terrycloth and warmth of hands and water.

"I did not hear, I am sorry," Sauli says suddenly, and Brad jerks out of his comforting stupor, eyes wide.

"Wh–what?"

"I heard you say you did not want leaves. That does not make sense. But the water is very loud."

"I–" And what has he said, while his guard is down and his tongue loose? He doesn't know, but he can make a horribly educated guess. Sauli gets down on one knee, both of them below the spray of the water now, rainbow colours dripping down Brad's skin.

"Bradley," he says. "I need to know what it is that you said."

Brad closes his eyes–they hurt, and when he closes them he feels tears run down his face. "I don't know," he whispers, but he owes Adam debts he can never pay and where Adam goes Sauli will follow, so he's guessing that covers them both.

"I think," he tries to say, and something catches way back in his throat. He clears it and tries again. "I think I told you the truth."

"And what is that?"

Brad lets his head fall forward, where Sauli won't be able to see his face even from the shower floor. Sauli reaches out to take his hand, and Brad twitches away; he's never liked being the one who does the walking away, but it's better than being walked away from.

"I don't want to leave," he whispers, and then Sauli's hands run up his arms, pull him gently down to the floor of the shower and into Sauli's lap. Brad tries to squirm away, and Sauli's arms tighten around his waist.

"Stop that," Sauli scolds. "We can talk, yes? We are friends."

Brad lets out something that can't decide if it's a laugh or a sob and tries to make himself as small as he can in Sauli's arms. "You don't get it," he answers, and wishes the floor wasn't wet so he could yank away and run. "I don't–I've never–like this, I haven't–"

"Shh." Sauli puts a finger on Brad's lips and turns his head with his free hand, around and up until they're eye to eye. Brad tries to speak around the finger, panic setting in, and Sauli shakes his head. "In a moment, yes. But just now, I want you to breathe with me, so that you can calm down and think clearly."

Brad obeys, takes a deep breath and lets it out in a rush. "I don't sub," he says at last. "I never have, not seriously. I'm not good at it and I don't like what most people make you do, the talking or not being allowed to say anything at all, it bothers me." He takes another of those breaths, long and slow. "And that, in there–it was okay, until the end and then it all kind of hit me." He offers up a big smile he hopes looks genuine. "And, well–I get kind of clingy, sometimes, and–"

Sauli shakes his head and frowns. "Now you are being dishonest." Brad feels the smile hit the floor. "This, it is a thing we talked about before, what you need after a scene. You told me that you do not like to be alone, and that is a thing I understand now. I would not have liked to be alone either. But you did not say anything about crying and feeling panic, and that is what I see in your eyes. Please tell me that everything that has happened tonight is not a lie."

Brad closes his eyes again and hangs his head–caught and convicted on a single lie. "None of it was," he murmurs. "That's the problem." He tries to get to his feet, and Sauli holds him back. "I should go."

"You should stay," Sauli contradicts. "Even if you were not upset I would tell you so, and I will not be the reckless one who says you are in a way to drive when you are crying and not in control of yourself." He reaches one hand neatly over his head for the cup that sits where the shampoo belongs and rinses the last of the soap from Brad's legs and stomach. "Tonight we will sleep and tomorrow we will talk about what you have shared with me. I do not think it is good tonight, except for this." He reaches up, cradles Brad's head in his hands and brings their foreheads gently together. "I am not angry and I will not push you away for feelings you cannot help. You should not feel like you have to lie to me when we have agreed to be honest with each other, even when it is difficult." He runs a hand–not through Brad's hair, it's too soaking wet for that, but over it. "You understand?"

Brad nods and rests his head against Sauli's shoulder. It feels too heavy to hold up, and he can't deal with looking into Sauli's face anymore.

"Yes."

\-----------------------

The bed is empty when Brad wakes up.

He takes in a breath, then runs his hands over the depressions in the foam where, last night, Sauli lay. They're cool to the touch. The collar they shared is sitting, neatly buckled, on the nightstand.

He swings his legs off the bed and finds a pair of bottoms and a T-shirt. He realises after he's got it on that it's Sauli's, and debates changing before deciding he can drop it in a mailbox later. Right now, every moment he spends here lowers his chances of making a clean getaway, and if Sauli's already talked to Adam, Brad doesn't want to be here when Adam's "sorry, family emergency, gotta go" plane lands. 

He was there the night some guy tried to put an arm around his waist and call him 'baby,' after all. He knows what Adam is capable of to keep what's his to himself. And, he thinks, a stumbling confession in the shower is way worse than a single drunken arm.

His computer is under the bed, and with it back in its bag he has everything he's brought with him that he can't replace. Taking the time to find all of his clothes–at least some of which are in the wash–would only slow him down, and so he heads for the door, ready to toe into his loafers and leave before Sauli ever gets out of the pool. 

Except Sauli's not in the pool, Brad discovers when he hits the living room.

He's eating a bowl of cereal and watching one of Adam's interviews on television.

Sauli raises his bowl and smiles when Brad skids to a stop. "It is the guilty pleasure," he comments, before taking a large bite of what Brad thinks might be Honey Crisp. "Do you want some? I will have to throw the box away when Adam comes home and still, it is half-full. I do not like the waste." Then he frowns at Brad's computer bag. "You work on Sundays?"

"I've got to go." Brad makes it a whole two steps into the mudroom before there's a hand around his wrist.

"Please, do not." Sauli tugs his arm, trying to pull him back into the living room. "I have talked to Adam this morning, and–"

"And he's going to _kill me_ , and I'd rather make it home before he gets here so he can do it in my apartment where I can be comfortably miserable and die in my own bed, thanks," Brad interrupts. Sauli frowns again.

"He is not going to kill you, and he is not coming for another five days, unless I tell him we need him here," Sauli answers. "Please. Let us talk."

"We can talk here." Brad shuffles his foot toward his shoe, and Sauli walks around him to block his access to the front door. Fuck.

"I think that you are having the wrong idea," Sauli tells him. "Adam is upset, but it is not because of what you told me. He is upset because you are upset. We knew this would be a hard thing to do, but we did not expect you to get hurt." He reaches out, lightning-quick, and pulls Brad into his arms. "Please, do not run because you are afraid. We took an hour this morning, talking things over, and if you decide you must run away I will have no choice but to follow you, because if there is any chance at all that we can help you, we will take it."

Brad turns his head. "What's going to help is pretending this month never happened, so, going now, thanks," he says. Sauli shakes his head.

"We have talked about the things you have said, and maybe it is not that simple," he counters. "You see what you have told Adam is that you do not have time for love. It is a thing you will wait for, until you have achieved your dreams. But we have both seen what you have given up for us and what you are willing to do for us, and do you not call that love?"

"It doesn't matter if I do or don't, you're in love with Adam and he's in love with you and you're that disgustingly sweet perfect couple everybody loves to coo over, and I don't have any business trying to get in the middle of that."

"But perhaps you do," Sauli counters. Brad stares, his mouth open. "We are not perfect, Adam and I, or we would not have had to ask for a help only you could give us. Perhaps it is not about 'getting in the middle' but about being."

Brad should really still be trying to pull away, but somewhere in that last sentence he got lost. "Huh?"

Sauli frowns. "You see, what I mean is that . . . we are not 'just the couple.' I am me, and he is he, and together we are we."

"And I am the walrus, ku-ku-kachoo," Brad retorts. "You _should_ be individuals. Otherwise when one of you has a problem, you both drown."

"The next line is 'I am the eggman,' and that is not what I mean either." Sauli grabs Brad's hands. "What I mean is that both of us think you are a very wonderful you. And you could also be we." He brushes Brad's fringe out of his face before Brad can protest. "It is not a thing we could tell the whole world, we know that. And we know that it would not be easy, always, either." His hand slips back down to Brad's, and this time Brad is too startled to pull away. "But Adam loves you, and that is not a thing that is going to change. And I . . . I will not say that I love you, because I do not know you so well. But I am very fond of you. And I do not see why you should be in pain, and we should have to lose a friendship, just because this is not a thing many people do."

"I don't have the time–"

"–for the kind of love you and Adam had alone," Sauli interrupts. "I know that. You have said so many times. But does that mean you cannot find a night once in awhile to share a meal and some time with us, time that perhaps you need more than you are willing to admit?" He squeezes Brad's hand. "Adam said this morning that it is not just that you do not like to sub. He said that many times with him, you were not even able, that last night was not a thing he would have expected you could ever do." He runs a thumb over the back of Brad's hand and smiles. "Stay with us. Even if it is only what Adam called 'friends with benefits.' We would both like that. And we will not ask anything of you that you are not ready to give."

Brad stares at him. "You want–all three of us."

"Yes."

"And you're telling me the jealous bastard I used to call a boyfriend wants all three of us, too."

Sauli cracks that grin Brad's fallen so hard for. "Yes, also."

"Even though it sounds like you guys talked about that meaning it wouldn't just be Adam gets two boyfriends, it'd be–all the way around."

"Yes." Sauli's eyes don't falter, and Brad wants to say yes just because he can hold that gaze while discussing the outright ridiculous. "It is not what people call normal, but we are not what people call normal, either."

"No," Brad agrees, "I don't think anybody would call any of us normal."

He looks down at their hands. Adam's ring sparkles on Sauli's finger, and Brad thinks of the one he still has tucked away in his little box at home, the one Adam never asked for the return of and that Brad still wears, sometimes, on a chain inside his shirt when he needs someone to feel close to. He thinks about coming over for dinner shortly before everything began, Adam proudly turning a baked shell onto Brad's plate and if the filling could have used a little more seasoning for Brad's taste, it was worth it to see Adam just simply _happy_ with his accomplishment for once. He thinks about Sauli's face when he asked to be taught, how unsure it was, how he nibbled the edge of his lip and didn't try to hide the nervousness in his eyes, how different, how confident and calm he looked last night compared to three months ago.

He thinks about how easy it was to break, when two days ago he would have thought it was impossible.

Then he looks back up.

"You _have_ to learn how to say 'jambalaya' before I can actually say yes, you know," he says, and Sauli laughs and pulls him close.

"You can teach me when we make it for Adam this weekend," he answers, directly into Brad's ear, and Brad reaches down for the hand on his waist as Sauli nuzzes his hair. "Stay?"

Brad thinks about what this could do to each and every single one of them if it went wrong, starting with destroying all three of their livelihoods. Then he thinks about the first thing he ever knew he and Sauli had in common: the ability to hold a staunch and ironclad silence.

He turns, rests his head on Sauli's shoulder and imagines Adam behind him, holding them both close.

"Okay."


End file.
